Your healthy body not only depends on your healthy diet but also on proper physical workouts. But we are so busy. Is there time for  a warm-up? Is it necessary?

When you have to fit an exercise routine into your already busy schedule, you might be tempted to simply skip the warm up routine, even though you’ve heard horror stories about people getting injured while working out. Three words: don’t do that. When you skip your warm up, you are not only putting your body as risk for personal injury, but you are also making the workout more difficult and less effective. For the best results, it is important to warm up every time you work out.

Warming up doesn’t have to eat up the time you allotted for exercise into your day. In fact, a decent workout only has to be 5 minutes long to do its job. It doesn’t have to be boring either—you can mix up a number of great moves to make your warm up as fun as the rest of your exercising. Remember that a good warm up gets all of your muscles moving, even if you don’t think that you’ll be intensely working out a set of muscles on any particular day. Warming up is also important regardless of if you’re doing cardiovascular exercises or lifting weights.

The moves you do for a warm up shouldn’t necessarily be difficult or make you break a sweat. The main goal of the warm up isn’t to become a part of your workout, but simply to slowly move muscles that you haven’t really thought about all day to wake them up. Good moves, therefore, include things like jogging in place, doing jumping jacks, lunging, and jumping rope.

A good warm-up can also including slowly stretching your muscles in a variety of ways, although this is usually more effective for a cool-down. Also consider exercises that work on balance and form in order to prepare you for the exercises you will be doing in the workout.

If you’re really short on time, why not try warming up before you even get to the gym. Slowly jog or power walk to the gym, park as far away as possible and lunge to the door, and take the stairs instead of the elevator. That way, when you get to the gym to workout your warm up routine is already half way done.

A good workout always builds in intensity. This is the best way to shed pounds and maintain a healthy weight. Weight loss workouts are only risky if you don’t warm up, because otherwise your body will respond to prevent injuries. Although you may be tempted to skip this step, that is never a good idea.

Ensures a Commitment to Local Field Office Presence Nationwide

Embarking on its 80^th Anniversary of being a key piece of the Nation’s fabric, Carolyn W. Colvin, Acting Commissioner of Social Security, today officially released Vision 2025. The vision will serve as a “North Star” to guide Social Security and show how the agency will accomplish and deliver three key priorities: superior customer experience, exceptional employees, and an innovative organization over the next decade and beyond.

“We must be prepared to adapt as technology and society changes at an unprecedented rate,” Acting Commissioner Colvin said.  “Vision 2025 is our way of making sure we keep up with these changes, and how we position ourselves to best serve the public in the future.”

When employees, customers, and partners are given the right tools to help them work better together, wonderful things happen.  In shaping Vision 2025, Social Security reached out to as many individuals and organizations as possible for input.  The agency engaged in active listening and communicating with internal and external stakeholders.  Internally, the agency engaged employees, labor unions, and management associations.  The agency encouraged and received feedback and ideas from the public through an online survey accessed on the agency’s website, www.socialsecurity.gov.  The agency also worked with the National Academy of Public Administration, members of Congress, advocacy groups, and the Social Security Advisory Board.  The input Social Security received resulted in “emerging themes” that led to the development of the three key priorities.

Vision 2025 reflects Social Security’s full commitment—now and in the future—to offering customers choices in how they do business with us. This commitment includes sustaining a field office structure that provides face-to-face service and is responsive to members of the public who need or prefer face-to-face service.

“Vision 2025 represents the agency’s commitment to continuous long-term planning.  It will guide our more than 65,000 employees who continue to provide exemplary service to our customers,” Acting Commissioner Colvin said.  “We are proud of our longstanding commitment to customer service and continual efforts to improve efficiency.  We are also excited about our vision for serving the public in the next 10 to 15 years.”

For more information, you can access the Social Security Vision 2025 interactive website here:

www.socialsecurity.gov/vision2025.